1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to thermal management systems for electronic devices and more specifically it relates to a microchannel thermal management system for thermally managing a heat producing device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Thermal management systems for heat producing devices (e.g. chips, integrated circuits, optoelectronic devices, power electronics and other electronic devices). Examples of commonly utilized thermal management systems are comprised of heat sinks, air-cooling, cold plates, liquid immersion and spray cooling.
A heat producing devices (e.g. chips) typically has at least one “hot zone” that has higher heat production (e.g. floating point on a chip) than other zones (e.g. cache on a chip). It is therefore desirable to providing increased thermal management within the hot zones of the heat producing device thereby increasing the thermal management efficiency of the device.
A commonly utilized form of thermal management comprises the usage of etched microchannels that receive coolant for the transfer of heat from the heat producing device. Microchannel systems have been in use for many years and are particularly useful for efficiently thermally managing devices that have one or more hot zones since the microchannels can be directed to the specific hot zones for increased thermal management thereof.
Also, conventional microchannel technology is limited to specific thermal management technologies and is not designed for usage with various other thermal management products, markets, system reliabilities and configurations. Hence, there is a need for a product that will solve the inherent limitations with microchannels as used in the thermal management industry.